Kunduz airstrike

The German commander who ordered a lethal airstrike in Afghanistan in September took full responsibility for the assault during a German parliamentary investigation on Wednesday.

During the five-hour hearing, Colonel Georg Klein answered questions on the attack, which took place in the Kunduz province of northern Afghanistan and killed or injured up to 142 people.

Klein expressed regret for the civilian victims of the bombardment.

"Every death is one too many," he said in a statement.

Tough decisions

Klein's lawyer Bernda Muessig said his client had done the best he could with the information available to him at the time.

"According to the relevant criteria of international humanitarian law, it is objectively certain that the decision for the airstrike was legal," Muessig wrote in a statement.

Klein's decision to launch an airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers stuck in a riverbed resulted in many civilian deaths, most of them thought to have been local villagers attempting to salvage fuel from the tankers.

Political reactions

The Green party politician Omid Nouripour said Klein had been very clear that he accepted the responsibility for the attack command. "With that, he also bears the responsibility for errors," he said.

The Christian Democrat leader Ernst-Reinhard Beck said Klein's decision was understandable. "The only motivation for his decision was in fact the protection of his soldiers," said Beck, adding that Klein couldn't have anticipated the extent of the damage to civilians.

The Kundus attacks, which took place shortly before the German federal elections, were sharply criticized in Germany, where the military involvement Afghanistan is unpopular.

The government's subsequent handling of the attacks resulted in the resignation of Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, as well as two high-ranking military leaders.

smh/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Rob Turner